But what Verizon is going to do, if successful, will change the concept. Verizon is joining with Vodafone, Japan’s SoftBank, and China Mobile to grab a chunk of the mobile-software market from the phonemakers to the Service providers.
Daring enough, Verizon Wireless is gearing up to challenge Apple in the market for software applications that are downloaded to cell phones. The movement itself is quiet brave because of the billion numbers of success of App Store.
Verizon, the no.1 US wireless operator, plans to preview its software store on July 28. They are pouring substantial resources into the effort. No doubt, it will be a struggle to catch up to Apple, which has built broad support among software developers and customers in the year since it launched its App Store.
Customers are flocking to devices such as the iPhone that offer myriad programs, and developers are cooking up software to meet the demand. You can use an iPhone to look for jobs, read golf greens, tune into digital radio, or play games. Juniper Research estimates sales of mobile applications could hit $25 billion in 2014, up from $5 billion this year.
What’s yet to be decided is who will control this market. Wireless carriers have long been the gatekeepers for what people do with their phones. But phonemakers, led by Apple and Research In Motion RIM, have grabbed an early lead by creating software stores that are easy for customers to use and profitable for developers. Apple says 100,000 developers have created more than 65,000 iPhone applications so far, and customers have downloaded those applications more than 1.5 billion times.
“It is going to be very hard for others to catch up,” boasted Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a July 14 press.
To get into the game, Verizon is crafting a strategy that’s more open and global than it has ever used in the past. It is teaming up with Vodafone, Japan’s SoftBank, and China Mobile to create a common software foundation. Developers will be able to write applications for the standard, which the carriers are calling the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL). When the store launches in the fall, it could reach as many as 1 billion customers, the combined total for the four operators. “I am not here to bash anybody, but if I could write one application that could touch every iPhone customer or one billion customers, who am I going to write for?” says Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam.
What it Does Mean for Developers
Part of the plan is to make it easier and cheaper for wireless software developers to work with Verizon and its partners. In the past, a developer would have to design an app to work with the dozens of handsets
Still, some developers remain skeptical. Josh Koppel, co-founder of ScrollMotion, a New York-based startup that has developed a hit electronic reader for the iPhone,